The Chronicles of Denny
by leadtakeout
Summary: After Denny's parents were murdered, he and Johnny left for San Francisco to track down their killers. Learn what was really driving the plot behind The Room.
1. Chapter 1

My name is Denny. For everyone's safety, I won't be using last names; simply giving any names is scary enough considering what has happened to me over the past seven years, but you need to know my story. You need to know why I did the things I've done.

I was born in an Eastern European country; I'm not at liberty to say which one. My parents were American. To be more specific, they were CIA agents on long term assignment. What exactly their assignments were, I've never been able to fully figure out, but it seems they were sent there to incite revolution against a government that was less than conducive to the interests of the United States government.

Whatever they were doing, they much have done a hell of a job of it, because it got them killed. I came home from the international school one evening to find my mother's body splayed across the staircase, blood flowing from the single bullet wound in her left temple. I called for my father, but there was no answer; running up to their bedroom, I found out way. He laid face down on the bed, over a red sheet that should have been white.

Something about the way my father's death happened didn't make sense to me, and despite my horror, I ran to him to see if there were any clues to how this had happened. It was then that I saw my father's final words, his message to me that sent me on a quest to exact revenge for the brutal murder of my parents.

CALL JOHNNY.

I immediately knew who he meant. My parents rarely talked shop around the house, but Johnny was one of their closest contacts in this foreign land, another CIA agent who could blend in perfectly with the local population.

I raced through my parents' rolodex searching for the name, and when I found it, franticly dialed. He picked up on the first ring.

"Johnny?" I screamed plaintively into the receiver, even before he spoke.

"Oh, hi Denny," he replied instantly. My sobs must have given the reason for my call away. "They're dead, aren't they?"

"What do I do?"

"Speak to no one," Johnny said. His voice always startled me; all the other agents I had met, even my own parents, struggled with the local accent, but Johnny had it down pat. Where he came from, he would never tell me, but he must have been from somewhere in the region. "I'll be around in the morning. Don't let anyone know what has happened. I'll do my best to find out who did this."

Terrified, I did as I was told. It may have been lucky that nobody came to the house that night, but in reality, my parents had never kept much company here. Their job necessitated secrecy, and they couldn't be seen in bed with the other Americans who made a living here if they were to be trusted as revolutionaries.

I barely slept that night, and what sleep I did have was interrupted by horrible visions of my parents being killed. In these dreams, my parents were killed by faceless assassins. I vowed that night to put faces to the ruthless killers who had taken my parents away from me.

As he promised, Johnny arrived early the next morning. He told me that he was unable to ascertain the identities of the killers, but that he did have a promising lead. Then, he paused for a moment before saying the words I will always remember.

"Denny, do you want to help find the people who did this?"

I knew the answer. There was only one answer.

"Yes."

Johnny had found out through backchannels that the killers were foreign spies who had masqueraded as locals – two people who had infiltrated the revolutionary movement in order to bring it down from the inside. After killing my parents, they were immediately located to their next assignment in the United States itself – in San Francisco.

That night, we took the first flight to New York, and by the following evening, we were in California. When we arrived in San Francisco, Johnny gave a few thousand dollars in cash, and told me the plan.

"I want you to be near me, Denny, but nobody can know about our connection. Stay in a hotel for two weeks, then meet me at this address," he said, giving me a scrap of paper. "I'll buy you an apartment in my building so that we can be in constant contact. Remember; tell no one that you know me already. We cannot trust anyone, Denny."

Taking his words to heart, I said goodbye. I booked a room at a swanky hotel in Nob Hill. I would always hold a debt of gratitude to Johnny for this. Together, we were going to find the bloodthirsty killers who had taken down my parents. I just had no idea how long it would take, and how high the cost of our success would be.


	2. Chapter 2

The next few years of my life were a blur. Johnny and I sought information on my parents' murderers, but it seemed like we were moving in circles. Either nobody knew who was responsible, or someone was blocking our progress.

But while we were failing to achieve our secret objectives, our public lives were going better than we had expected – so well, in fact, that it was sometimes difficult to remember why we were really in San Francisco. As Johnny had planned, I soon moved into his apartment building and registered in the local community college. Johnny had taken me in, and become a father to me. This was easy – I didn't even have to pretend. Johnny really was all I had in the world, and he had been very generous, even if we couldn't tell anyone the whole story.

Johnny did well for himself, too. Within days of arriving in San Francisco, Johnny met Lisa, a beautiful young woman with a keen interest in the computer industry. Johnny liked to tell the story of meeting her while working as a busboy in a hotel; he never seemed to realize just how dull the story really was. But he loved Lisa, and within a few years, he was ready to make her his future wife.

Around the same time, Johnny began to spend time with a guy named Mark. He seemed a little unstable to me; apparently he was some washed-up high school football star who liked to sleep with as many women as possible and tell the world just how skilled each of his conquests was in the bedroom. I never trusted him, but nonetheless, Mark and Johnny became best friends.

The four of us now formed our core of what became a great group of friends – the only people Johnny and I felt comfortable around. Of course, there were others, too. Lisa's mother, Claudette, became a mom to all of us, making it all the more tragic when we found out that she had breast cancer. We knew she didn't like to talk about it, but we could tell she was worried. Lisa's old friend Michelle added some down-to-earth common sense to our clan, while her boyfriend Mike was always good for a laugh. Mark introduced us all to his buddy Peter, a psychologist who never hesitated to give us advice.

Together, we'd all spend nights hanging out on the roof of our apartment building, tossing around the pigskin and just talking about the most mundane topics you could imagine. And yet, to us, it was fun and exciting; people came and went every few minutes, so you never knew who you might say "hi" to next.

But while it was all fun and games for everyone else, Johnny and I were on a mission. After years of spinning our wheels, I had finally made contact with an Armenian gangster named Chris-R. He claimed to have information about the people who murdered my parents, and I was willing to pay anything to get it.

We arranged for a meeting to take place on the roof of my apartment building, the same one so often frequented by my friends. But today, they were all supposed to be out, meaning we could have some privacy. I didn't need anyone else finding out exactly what was going on – why we were really here.

When Chris-R arrived, I had to work hard to present a brave front. Maybe my parents were used to dealing with shady characters, but to me, Chris-R was intimidating. He didn't look like the kind of guy who took the diplomatic approach to problem solving. Sure enough, he was direct with his demands.

"You have my money, right?"

There was a little snafu here. I had arranged for Johnny to be at the meeting with the money, but he hadn't gotten back from the bank yet.

"Yeah," I stuttered nervously, "it's coming. It'll be here in a few minutes."

"What do you mean it's coming, Denny? Where's my money?"

Hadn't he heard me? Surely, even this guy could wait around and enjoy the view for a couple minutes while the boatload of money he had asked for in exchange for the information arrived.

"Just give me five minutes," I pleaded. "Just give me five."

"You want five fucking minutes? I haven't got five fucking minutes!"

Shit – I really was messing with the wrong guy.

Chris-R pulled out a handgun and shoved me to the ground, holding the gun to my head. He asked me again and again for the money, but no matter how much I reassured him that the money was coming, he refused to relent.

Just as I was sure that Chris-R was ready to put a bullet through my skull, Johnny busted through the door. For a moment, we shared a knowing look – Johnny was here with the money, and we could finally get the information we needed to get the vengeance we so desperately desired.

But unfortunately for us, Mark had decided to hang around in Johnny's apartment – Johnny had given everyone keys so that it would look far less unusual for me to have one – and when Johnny returned, he had been unable to shake Mark. When they heard the screaming on the roof, both of them ran off. The problem was that Mark wasn't in on the game; to him, I was just some poor kid about to be the victim of gangland violence.

With no way to explain any other action, Johnny rushed to my aid. To his credit, Mark was right behind him, and helped subdue Chris-R and take away his gun. They were more than a match for Chris-R, and did the only thing that made sense in the situation – took him downstairs, and prepared to turn him in to the cops.

By this point, Lisa and Claudette had made their way up to the roof as well, and they had a lot of questions. I tried to pass it off as nothing, but they were persistent, and simply refused to let the matter go. Finally, I decided the best way to get them off my back was simply to tell the truth – that I owed him money.

"What kind of money?" Lisa asked. She was flipping out, and while it was nice to see that she cared, it was probably the worst possible time for her to pump me for information. I needed a cover story, so I went with the first plausible idea that came to mind.

"I bought some drugs off of him." This seemed like something that might lead to a confrontation involving a gun, so I was pretty sure they'd buy it. "Things got mixed up – I didn't mean for this to happen."

My answer upset Lisa, while Claudette flew off the handle entirely. The next two minutes were two of the longest of my life, as I answered rapid fire questions about where the money came from and what it was for. My answers made no sense – first I was buying the drugs, then I was selling them, and then I was borrowing money to pay for other things – but they were far too angry to catch on to my inconsistencies.

The situation only calmed down when Johnny and Mark returned. While Claudette's fury could not be contained, Mark was able to calm down Lisa.

"Come on," he said, "it's clear."

"What's clear?" asked Claudette, and I remember thinking the same thing at the time. What a strange thing to say in that situation…and yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, it made sense. In any case, it was enough for Lisa to stop asking questions, and before too long, even Claudette had decided that screaming at me wasn't going to accomplish anything more. Johnny stayed up on the roof with me for a couple minutes longer, just so everyone else could hear him console me. Even now, we couldn't take the risk of anything looking unusual or out of place.

The interrupted meeting with Chris-R should have been only a minor setback; I was ready to set up another meeting anytime he was ready. But every time I attempted to contact Chris-R, it proved impossible. For a while, I thought he had disappeared off the face of the earth.

The truth was far more shocking. A week later, Chris-R's body washed up down by the docks. He had been killed execution style, with one bullet precisely delivered to the back of his head.

And just like that, we were back to square one. The only person we had found in five years who knew anything about my parents was dead. Even worse, the only way any of this made sense was if someone knew exactly what Chris-R was about to tell us, and decided he needed to be eliminated first. It was a clear message: pursue this further, and people will die.

At the time, I remember thinking that it was over, that there was no way Johnny and I would recover from this setback. But in truth, the murder of Chris-R was the catalyst for so many other events that set us on the path towards revenge. While I feared that his death might set us back years, it would be only a matter of weeks before I had the blood of my parents' killers on my hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Things were happening fast, and there were events I wasn't exactly privy too that later turned out to be more important than we could have imagined. The night before my fateful encounter with Chris-R, it turned out that Johnny had had his own incident that seemed innocent enough, but later turned out to be pivotal in the course of our lives.

While Johnny and I had come to San Francisco expecting the search for my parents' murderers to be all-consuming, we probably should have known all along that it wasn't going to work out that way. Over time, our cover stories became a very real part of our lives. Johnny fell in love with his future wife Lisa, and began working just as hard at his banking job as he did on our investigation.

Meanwhile, I was developing my own feelings for Lisa. She was beautiful, and looked great in a red dress. One of my favorite hobbies was following Johnny and Lisa up to their bedroom, hoping to sneak a peak at Lisa without the red dress on. It was immature and possibly a little creepy, but they never seemed to mind. Johnny would usually just laugh to off and joke that "two is great, but three is a crowd," and then I'd leave them to their business – no harm done!

My feelings for Lisa confused me. Johnny was like a father and a best friend to me, so how could I possibly want to kiss his future wife? Did that make me a horrible person? I confessed my feelings for Lisa to him one night on the roof, but he seemed to take it in stride; according to him, Lisa loved me too – as a friend – and my crush was innocent. I'll never forget what he told me that night: "if a lot of people loved each other, the world would be a better place to live."

But behind the scenes, there were troubling signs for Johnny and Lisa. No matter how hard Johnny worked at the bank, no matter how much money he saved them with his brilliant ideas, he couldn't seem to get that elusive promotion that would provide the financial security he and his future wife desperately needed. Lisa tried her best to earn some extra money in the computer industry, but it was just too competitive for her.

While Johnny tried to look on the bright side of things, it was apparent that Lisa had become increasingly frustrated. I knew she spent a lot of time with Johnny's best friend Mark, and though I'd never say anything about it to Johnny, I suspected that they might be having an affair. The way Mark talked about the women he'd been with, I didn't doubt for a second that he'd sleep with his best friend's future wife if he got the chance.

Things came to a head one night after Johnny learned that he had been turned down for a promotion yet again. I wasn't there to see what happened, but Johnny recounted the events several times over the following days, so I feel comfortable that I know how it went down.

On the way home from work, he stopped off at a flower shop to pick up a dozen red roses for Lisa. I know the shop he's talking about; the woman behind the counter was one of our most valuable contacts in San Francisco. Johnny and her had a foolproof system for conveying critical information without letting anyone in the store know anything unusual was happening at all. Take the conversation they had that day, for instance. If you were listening in, it may have sounded vaguely awkward, but you never would have picked up on the secret messages being passed back and forth. Here's how it went down:

"Can I have a dozen red roses, please?" Johnny asked, meaning what he said – after all, he did want the flowers for Lisa, and this place made some of the best floral arrangements on the West Coast.

"Oh, hi Johnny," the woman replied, "I didn't know it was you." That was the cue that there was information to be passed along about my parents' murder.

"Here you go," she continued, filling in the blanks with small talk to throw off anyone who might be listening in.

"That's me!" Johnny was a pro. He knew just how to make coded conversations seem entirely authentic. "How much is it?"

This was the brilliant part. Based on her response, Johnny would know exactly when to meet her to receive the information.

"It'll be 18 dollars." This part was a little too simple for my taste. Eighteen dollars just meant 18:00 – or 6:00 pm. But Johnny knew how to muddy the waters. He handed the cashier a twenty.

"Here you go, keep the change!"

This signaled a change in the timing of the meeting. It would now happen at 20:00. Johnny later told me that the real reason behind the switch was so that he wouldn't keep Lisa waiting. He was a very devoted future husband.

"Hi doggy," Johnny said, petting the mutt who always sat on the flower shop counter. It was another simple code; doggy meant D, and D meant docks. The location for their meeting was now set.

"You're my favorite customer," the woman replied, confirming the time and location where the information would be exchanged.

Johnny rushed back home with the flowers, knowing that he had little time to lose if he wanted to see Lisa before his secret meeting took place. Arriving at home, he told Lisa that he didn't get his promotion at the bank. She seemed supportive; she had ordered a pizza ahead of time, getting their favorite toppings: half Canadian bacon with pineapple, half artichoke and pesto, light on the cheese. At least, that's what they paid for; curiously, the pizza guy showed up with a plain cheese pizza instead.

Lisa then poured Johnny a drink – some sort of weird scotch and vodka mix that she had perfected. I should point out that, as a rule, Johnny didn't drink; it was dangerous to lose full awareness of your surroundings when anyone out there could be an enemy agent looking to off you. Without any tolerance to alcohol, Johnny quickly found himself drunk. He and Lisa spent the night together, and it wasn't until the next morning that Johnny realized he had missed the meeting with his contact entirely. He stopped by the flower shop to see if they could reschedule, but it had mysteriously closed. Our contact was never heard from again.

Johnny was angry. How could he have let himself screw up our best chance at finding my parents' murderers? I reassured him that it was okay; no matter how many obstacles were thrown in our way, I wouldn't rest until we exacted revenge against those bastards who had ruined my life.

At least our personal lives seemed to be in order, even if our investigation seemed to be losing steam. But when Lisa started sharing her version of the events of the previous evening, it was the beginning of the end: for their relationship, for Johnny, and for my quest.


End file.
